


FLICKERBEAT

by asongtosaygoodbye



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Drug Addiction, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, Party Drugs, Phone Sex, Sexual Tension, Urban Fantasy, doing small crimes via fantasy craigslist, fletching and moondrop as the trashiest but most fun messy burlesque drag haus troupe, fuck buddies to friends to lovers, post-prison reintegration is fucking hard, so much horny tension yall
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-03-07 14:44:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18875308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asongtosaygoodbye/pseuds/asongtosaygoodbye
Summary: He was not supposed to be here again, but of course he was.The bar scene was a hot smear of color and sound against his skin, a hazy strain of pop music soaking up through the floor.  It was the kind of beat that snagged in the belly, a low rumble. All of it so heavy in the dark room, this underwater thickness to the air as turquoise light shifted into magenta, its iridescent shiver swirling in the cigarette smoke, the stench of spilled liquor and anonymous perfume already sticking in his hair.And at the end of the day, he was a stupid, needy man, so Caleb took his drink to a beer stained black table in the back corner, and he watched. The men, the boys. The frenetic redlight sweat of all those dazzling, vapid bodies unsickened of their own skin._A series of grungy, glittery, slice-of-life vignettes of recovery, club scenes, party drugs, and parole. Favors and mistakes, the sweet things said in fucksore bedrooms between midnight and morning.





	1. The Adrenaline Room

**Author's Note:**

> hey y'all! This is gonna be my first multi-chapter fic, and i'm excited to see what y'all think c: I currently have it rated as M, but I'm telling y'all now that this is going to get pretty filthy down the line, so it will probably bump up to E and I'll add relevant tags accordingly as we go. it started as wanting to just write the M9 at a gay bar, but then it became a more complicated beast, and here we are.

He was not supposed to be here again, but of course he was. 

The bar scene was a hot smear of color and sound against his skin, a hazy strain of pop music soaking up through the floor. 

It was the kind of beat that snagged in the belly, a low rumble. All of it so heavy in the dark room, this underwater thickness to the air as turquoise light shifted into magenta, its iridescent shiver swirling in the cigarette smoke, the stench of spilled liquor and anonymous perfume already sticking in his hair. 

And at the end of the day, he was a stupid, needy man, so Caleb took his drink to a beer stained black table in the back corner, and he listened.

Watched. 

The music rose like heat. Bright liquors sloshed in raised glasses as revelers shifted through the loose crowd, stems held aloft on slender wrists, bright liquid spilling onto the floor like laughter. 

And people danced. 

They swayed, spoke, tangled their fingers together. Hands on waists, bodyheat filling the chamber against the outside chill, their faces so open and delighted as they moved.

_“You need to go outside, Caleb, really.” Nott had fretted gently the first time, raking her knotted little hands through the mess of his hair, her green skin cool against his face. His eyelids were hot and his fingers were cold in the corrosive, fishbelly glow of the computer light, the clatter of the keyboard and the occasional passing of a car the only sound in the new dark hovel of their home. This yet unfurnished shoebox that they shared, its single mattress pushed into the corner, the laptop and the wires and the devices huddled beside it. “It’s been a few...days, now.” Her voice swallowed, dipped. “I know you’re very busy, but it’ll do ya good to get out for a while. Just, take a walk around the block, clear your head?”_

_The clicking stopped, dulled._

_She was right. It had been days. It had been days and days and days in those three small rooms, shower curtains taped over the window frames, muting sickly yellow streetlight through the plastic floral fabric._

_His skin was stale with it, vision strained and shoulders sore. So often she was right about these things. She was very smart, so smart._

_Goblin as she was, and so much better than he at this, at being a person._

_He had shifted the clunky grey laptop from his knees, and turned to face her yellow eyes, bright and knowing in the dark._

_“Will you...be alright here, by yourself?”_

_“Of course.” She smiled then—a genuine thing, her sticky fingers already curling for the keys. “Besides, I’ve got some things I need to get started here, so you go and get some air, and let me know if you need anything.”_

So he did.

She did not ask for many things, and this friendship they were building was an important thing, so he did.

Laced up his boots and made his way out of the rusty walk-up and into the hot, nightblack air, a haze of neon slick across the tarmac, shimmering across the recent rain. 

This was a city big enough to disappear in. 

Its outer districts were these congested, convoluted things, packed tight with beggars and food stalls and the newest round of refugees resettled in a maze of narrow, rickety hallways and matchbox flats. Beauty stores and laundromats glowed between darkened shopfronts like broken teeth, the skyline riddled with rusting fire escapes.

Sometimes he still got skittish with the noise of the city, the press of sounds and people and motion, but this neighborhood, it had a pulse to it. 

It had not been his intention to find a bar at all really, just to walk to the river and then back. 

But then he had passed this little dive by happenstance, a dark rickety stair well crammed between a wig store and a closed down restaurant, oozing violet light and low music out into the street. 

Nothing special until he moved to pass it and he was stopped in his tracks by a faint ripple of the arcane, this familiar thrum of energy wafting out of the narrow open doorway like a heat signature. 

Now that, that had made it interesting.

So he had stood there for a few moments with his hands pushed down into his pockets, clothes bedstale and sticking to his skin before he smoothed a breath down from the back of his throat and ducked beneath the threshold of peeling paint and band stickers to the stairs, a single threadbare rainbow flag flickering in the still wind like a boon. 

That was the first time.

It was supposed to be the last, but it wasn’t.

Foolish as he was, weak as he was, he had returned. 

Always on a Tuesday or a Wednesday night, some off color evening when it wasn’t so loud but the crowd was still thick enough to hide a body in. And he would come in, he would quietly order a single drink, and just go and sit at that fucking table with the glass between his hands and watch the room move, the frenetic redlight sweat of all those dazzling, vapid bodies unsickened of their own skin.

He lifted the glass to his lips and thought for a moment of Nott, and that it was good that she did not accompany him here. She had been trying so hard now to abstain from the drinking. He still didn’t know her full story, but he knew that she was not like him who could just have one or two and then be good to go, and that had helped land her in the pit. Helped get her low enough down in her life that their stories crossed paths.

The lukewarm beer was a thin amber and just enough alcohol to blur a pleasant warmth around his senses, slow down his mind. To help his edges melt a little bit into the thickened air, be present here in this room.

Between the enchanted orbs of jewel toned light carouselling the room he caught flashes of elbows, smiles, a kaleidoscope of form. He caught the tipped ears of an elven woman, a long flicker of white-blond hair spooling lavender in the enchanted light. The handsome curve of a man’s cheekbone, a deep greenish-yellow of orcish descent. An assortment of elegant horns curling up and back from flushed faces, shimmering in shades of red and blue and all variations between, humans and dancers and shapes indivisible in the crowd. 

“—did you know that it's kind of rude to just look at people and not talk to them?”

Caleb blinked towards the voice, words blurring until his vision refocused to find himself face to face with a blue-skinned tiefling girl, the magenta light catching on her horns as she peered across at him with bright, curious eyes.

“...excuse me?”

“You've been staring at people.” The girl leaned her elbows forward on his table, soft hands steepling beneath her chin. “It’s a little bit creepy, I just thought I should tell you, in case you didn’t know. I would hate it if I was hanging out somewhere being super creepy and I didn’t know.”

Caleb’s brow knit and he shifted slightly, closing off his posture. “I am not... _staring_ , just.” A frown flickered at the corner of his mouth and he leaned his elbows further on the table, one hand resting over the rim of his pint. “...More here for drinking than talking.” 

The girl's freckled nose wrinkled a bit as she considered his point, a silver chain jingling from her horn. “But you kind of definitely are though, and you do it like, _all of the time._ ”

Her scrutiny made his mouth dry. This spread of shame between his shoulders, sticking hot beneath his hair.

“I...have only been here in this building three times.” He kept his voice as even as possible, unhurried and low.

“This is true, _but_ you’ve been weird every one of the times. Which means you are probably always a little bit weird.” She pointed out with a little frown. “And, I'm not saying that you are, but _just so you know_ —” Her pudgy hands raised in a disarming gesture of complete innocence, standing from the table. “It sort of definitely makes it seem like you might be, I don't know, like...an undercover _cop_ or maybe like a _serial killer_ , or someone that watches people having a good and then follows them home and tries to wear their skin or something—”

Caleb looked past her, did not speak. 

Smoke swirled in the low, ambient heat as he tuned out the girl’s amethyst eyes, the lines of his face still and grave and impassive as he let his vision unfocus on a random point against the far wall, tongue pressed hard against the back of his teeth. 

Across the room, shadows danced, jewel tones glittered. Smoke curled up towards the ceiling, carrying the beat.

“You know, Jester dear—” An easy, teasing brogue slipped evenly over the first voice, nudging onto his radar. “I think we all appreciate the extra security, but I'm willing to wager our friend here is likely just from outta town.”

When Caleb’s vision returned, there was a second tiefling speaking at her hip, one hand placed on the small of the girl’s back and another at her elbow, steering her back into the crowd. 

And when he looked up, the body that he saw was a vicious, beautiful thing.

Vibrant and obscene, with so much easily exposed lavender skin, littered in scars, paraded with tattoos. Casual opulence dripped from their horns in a series of shifting metallic baubles and charms, their noticeably capable body sheathed in a short black dress. 

The thin fabric shimmered when they moved, fitted neatly against their flat chest and trim shoulders, neckline plunging to the telltale shiver of lean, lithe muscle, a collection of gold chains sticking to their dance sweat.

A dull soreness rose in his jaw and he cut his gaze away from that body, back towards the far wall. 

“Awfully sorry about that. She’s an absolute doll I swear, but can get a _touch_ carried away.” 

Caleb felt the slow shift of body heat in his direction, the shadow as the figure tilted closer but he still didn’t speak, fingertips stiff against the glass. 

“...Not from around here, are you?”

A bead of condensation slipped down against his knuckle and Caleb cleared the gravel from his throat, took an even breath in through the nose. 

“No.” 

It came out meaner than he intended, but maybe that was good. 

Usually that was good, but the stranger didn’t budge. Just rested their hip against the edge of the table and waited for a better answer, his red, pupilless gaze bright and expectant in the halflight. 

A tremor blackened in his mouth and Caleb cut his eyes back down to the table.

“I did not imagine that would be so much of a problem, in a place like this.” And he took up his drink, knocking it back.

“Oh, it’s not at all, really. Except, well—” The tiefling mused into the flute of his own drink with a noncommittal shrug, a glimmer of mirth tugging round the corner of his lips. “I s’pose it certainly makes you more interesting.” 

And for a small, foolish moment, Caleb thought that he might like that, to be interesting. 

He watched him move.

Sliced his gaze across the sheen of sweat gathering in the hollow of the tiefling’s throat, long and lean and traced with a slight shimmer of gold, pinpricks of body glitter shining bright across the saturated skin. Watched as he held the flute of his glass and swallowed down the rest of something vibrant and smokey and blue—

“Have you got a light?”

An engraved silver cigarette case flashed briefly in the air before the table rocked slightly and the tiefling took a seat on the edge, body as casual and easy in this bar as if they were in his own home, legs folding at the knee. “Don’t tell anyone, but these shoes are fuckin’ _killing_ me.” He leaned in close to murmur, voice low and conspiratorial as he snapped shut the case, a single rolled paper held between his knuckles. 

There was a moment of silence, a slow breath.

And then like a complete and utter goddamn _fool_ —

Caleb bit the inside of his cheek and jerked his chin in a silent directive for him to bring the paper closer, the angle of his jaw sharp and stark as he checked once more around the room. 

A brief quirk of confusion arched the tiefling’s brow but he obeyed, shifting closer and leaning down slightly, two fingers holding the cigarette between his lips. 

And Caleb locked eyes with him for the faintest sliver of a moment before leaning forward to cup one hand in a shield around the end of the paper and allowing his other to dip into the thin, invisible thread of the Weave and strum the familiar energy there like a match, calling a quick flicker of flame to the tip of his fingers. 

_What in the **fuck** are you doing._

The stranger inhaled on the strike to make the cherry catch, and as soon as the cigarette caught, their grin stretched wide, all teeth. “...That’s a pretty good trick.” A shimmer of interest flashed in those mischievous, vermillion eyes, and then he shifted to offer out one lavender hand, turning indigo in the dance light. “Mollymauk Tealeaf.” He announced, all clever angles and cavalier charm. “Molly to my friends.”

The tiefling was so close that Caleb could feel the heat of his thigh against his knuckles. The way he ran hot, already so warm in this congested room—

The proximity was making him dizzy. 

The shifting of the lights, the heady carnal stench of too many bodies in too small of a room, the air colored with their shared breath as they traded partners and winded themselves dancing.

“...Caleb.” He returned to his pint and spoke the lie evenly into the air, leaving the hand empty where he found it. “Caleb Widogast.”

He should have left twenty minutes ago.

“Well, Mister Caleb.” Blue smoke sighed between painted lips, blurring into the room around them. “How about I buy you another drink, since it was my friend who so rudely interrupted your first.”

Caleb refocused his wandering mind into his fingertips, rigid and chapped and resting firmly on the black faux lacquer table top. “That will not be necessary.” He shut his eyes a moment to the swimming ghostlights of the room. Opened them and kept his body still, a threadbare focus wearing thin beneath his shirt. “She is young. She has time to learn.”

“True.” Mollymauk ashed his cigarette. “And. Well, to be entirely fair, she does have a bit of a point.” He let his head roll back a fraction, cracking off the tension. “You sulk around the corner like that long enough, folks are bound to think you're looking for a little trouble.”

“ _Ja_ , well. Perhaps you should be buying her a drink then, for her vigilance.”

“Ha, maybe.” Amusement curled around his lips, the faintest press of a forked tongue against the quirk of another toothy grin. “Though, y’know, I’ve never been particularly famous for my good decisions.”

A stiff lump gathered in Caleb’s throat, but before he could speak again, the flashy patron lifted his mostly finished glass from the table with a knowing, cavalier smile, cheap bangles clattering around his wrists. “Here—” And when Mollymauk leaned in closer he smelled of spilled vodka and cheap perfume, this heady musk which clung to the heat around his collar. It made him think of dark fruit, of plum wine and ruptured pomegranates baking thick and sweet beneath the sun. “I’ll be back in two ticks.”

And then the tiefling knocked back the dregs of the pilfered drink before raising it in a drunkard’s salute and heading off to the bar, a dark half-moon ring of mauve pigment marking the edge of the glass.

_Fuck._

The image of smearing that color down his chin seared between his fingers. The slick of it, the way the black fabric would look pushed up around his hips, the heat of his throat, turned and exposed in red light, breath dragging heavy as his knees split wider—

Something hot and metallic curdled in his mouth. 

Caleb stood and the room spun, dizzy violet smoke sticking his shirt to his skin. 

Bodies moved, shifted in the crowd and he pushed past them, the occasional elbow skirting his ribs, shoulders and hair and heat as he made his way past the bar, towards the door frame.

“Hey—”

A familiar voice lifted towards him and he ignored it. Kept walking, the jostle of the stairs stuttering his vision.

_Fucking coward._

The evening chill rose up from the door to meet him. Outside, the air was sudden and clammy on his skin, coming up from the river.

Blood and speech cemented tacky in his teeth, mouth going immobile and he couldn’t speak if he wanted to. He didn’t. Even if he did, it wouldn’t matter. The thin muscle was already locking up, voice forbidding itself from escaping his skin.

Footsteps clattered around him, a loose gathering of patrons smoking down in the street. Heels on concrete, neon light. 

“—thing alright?”

A touch landed on his body like a brand. The warm texture of a hand curling around his wrist and he snatched it away.

He was dimly aware of glass shattering on asphalt.

A splash of liquid into the air, onto his shoes.

“Hey asshole, what the fuck—” A woman’s voice flared and he ignored that too, just kept walking, mind whiting out into this pale, inarticulate buzz.

He walked until the white noise started to slow again.

Until he could hear the asphalt turning to gravel, feel the heartbeat in his fingers. 

An image threatened the borders of his mind and he pressed a hand up over his eyes, back through his hair.

_Walk._

_Get there, you fucking piece of shit._

He took a step forward onto the gravel lot outside the walk up, the tenement structure broad and grey against the black sky, orange squares of light soaking through the windows, second hand cars sleeping down here in the asphalt 

He walked up through the smoking area, mismatched yard chairs and cast iron garden tables clustered in the shadow of the building closer to the street light, blocky stairs up to the first landing, its heavy red metal door. 

There had been a garden there once, but the tenant who had managed it had died so there were just old brown husks now, flower pots and leaves crackling up against the building's side.

Caleb took out his keys and let his body guide him back up to the apartment on autopilot, skin turning sallow in the stale fluorescent hall.

When he entered their unit, Nott was standing on a box in their tiny kitchen, an amber light on and the smell and heat of something prepackaged cooking, trying to make something worthwhile. 

Her kindness made him nauseous.

She said something but he didn't hear it. Just gave her a lukewarm nod and a wave as he staggered deeper into the apartment, heading towards their room.

She deserved more of course, always more, but this was what she got.

Caleb got to the room and went to the mattress on the floor, a thin dark shape passing through the streetlight. 

` _—Reintegration. Chapter 2, Section 1. Ex-prisoners are particularly vulnerable during the 6 to 12 month period following release. During this time they will be trying perhaps to re-establish links with their families, to find accommodation, employment, to once again take responsibility for themselves, and to adjust to life outside prison. They will be under psychological and social pressure due to a range of reasons associated with their imprisonment and release—_ `

He sat down and ground the heels of his palms against tired eyes, trying to breathe. 

The image of the club, the bodies flicker in his mind. The casual, cloying interest of that stranger with the clever words, their warm eyes glowing amber red in the dark trespasses his mind and he drags a hand down over his mouth. 

He thinks of heat.

He thinks of wrapping that image around his fist and beating himself to death.

But he doesn't. 

Just pushes a slow breath through his body and opens up the laptop, lets it sit there on his knees. 

`—Post-release support is therefore vital to help prisoners re-build their lives in a constructive and positive manner. Probation services, where they exist, and community groups and other organisations of civil society can provide such support. It is also essential to raise public awareness to lessen the extent to which ex-prisoners are stigmatized—`

Caleb clicks on the machine, lets it douse his body in blue. 

Slicks the light sheen of sweat up from his face and into his hair, getting back to work.


	2. Cellophane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _After that, the night was beautiful again._
> 
> _It was liquid velvet, it was magenta warmth and starlight as the room opened up, the noise slipping around him like a second skin, this crystalline thing, raucous and bright. Big smiles all around._
> 
> Mollymauk has never had an issue with a little self medication.

 

Night air chilled the thin sweat across Mollymauk’s chest and he took in a slow breath, the stink of spilled beer soaking through the front of his dress, thick beneath his feet.

 

A car passed. 

 

His forked tongue pressed hard against the back of his teeth, one hand still raised in the shape of a pint glass. Tail lights smeared a red glow across the wet sidewalk, flecks of shattered glass shimmering in the black.

 

_Fucking fantastic._

 

Ultraviolet light soaked the thin crowd of gossips and smokers, muffled music and chatter spilling out into the street. The stench of piss and bodies and sour perfume steaming up from the alley and mixing with ambient laughter, drunk girls teetering into each other on unsteady feet, clumsy in their stilettos.

 

“Hey. The fuck was that about?” Beau’s voice lifted towards him, the violet light catching the hard copper of her skin, hands lifting from her hips. 

 

"Apparently not much of anything." 

 

"No shit." She pushed a loose strand of hair back from her face and checked back over her shoulder, sharp gaze trying to catch movement down the block then abandoning it, falling in step. "You good?"

 

“Fucking peachy.” 

 

"You sure about that."

 

"Go fuck yourself." 

 

Molly dropped his hand and pushed past her back towards the dancebeat of the club. 

 

A thin rage rose like a knife fight in his mouth and he pressed it hard against his cheek, a fanged smile cutting out against the gathered crowd.

 

“Careful with that, you’ll catch flies.” He sneered to a tall blonde girl, her mouth hanging indelicately open as her friend whispered and pointed at the shattered glass, jutting her chin back further down the street. 

 

She made a sound and he shouldered past them back into the club, the black stairs creaking beneath his boots, one hand pushing back through his hair. 

 

The dress itself had been a bit of an experiment.  

 

Something snagged from the three dollar bin while accompanying Desmond and Orna on a costume materials run, pleasantly sauced to the rattle of single shopping cart wheel in the overbright secondhand store. They were out seeking wonderfully hideous old things with shoulder blades and sequins that they could scavenge into bodysuits and filigree for the real performers of the troupe, the lot of them over at Gustav's getting day drunk to the shutter of the sewing machine, Golden Girls reruns laugh tracked in the background. 

 

It wasn’t so much his business, getting dolled up, not like the rest of them. He was a sweet talker, flier fairy, more a boisterous and charming promoter than a performer. It was more of his job to see to it that people came to the shows and that they had a grand old time while doing it, artfully working the crowd to keep their glasses full and their pockets empty, lauding the virtues of tipping their bartenders and tossing their ones and fives far up onto the stage.

 

But this was his body, and he could do with it what he liked. 

 

He could line his lids with gold and pierce holes through his horns, he could ink it up and turn it out and dress it up in whatever absurd assortment of fabric he desired, no matter what the tags or the old cashiers or the street corner dandies said about whose it was to wear.  

 

He was old enough now to know that this could sometimes be a dangerous thing, but he didn’t care. He wanted to try this, so he did. 

 

Slipped the slinky black number over spine, Yasha's broad hands cool against his skin and wedding-night tender on the zipper as she stitched the fabric closed up to the middle of his back, evil eye and sun and moon and spangled sky still displayed between the glittering black.

 

It had fit him like a dream, transgressive and gaudy and this small dizzy flutter in the pit of his stomach as he stepped out with her into the night, heavy red painted door shutting behind them, smokes and show fliers and switchblade tucked neatly into a borrowed purse. 

 

Music pulsed, rocked in his knees, in his ankles as Mollymauk came up to the top of the stairs, pushing back into the club scene.

 

Smoke shifted from violet to magenta and he navigated through the thin clusters of patrons towards the table he and Yasha had claimed when they first arrived, his purse tucked beneath Beau’s abandoned jacket. 

He caught a glimpse of the now vacant back corner table and a barb of indignation needled in his throat.  

 

Molly’s mind flashed back to that stranger―his face a sharp, pallid smear in the murky greenlit dark. Long hands, hungerstrike eyes that he had _felt_ tracking the motions of his body, watching the room like a long dead thing. 

 

He had been interested in that. He had been interested in a lot of things. 

 

There had been something vicious and self-inflicted in his tone despite the softness of his speech, in the way that he carried himself. This harsh, self contained efficiency to his motions that admittedly made him wonder how he might move in more obscene circumstances, if that was a body he could trainwreck with. 

 

Then of course there had been that brief flicker of magic—honestly _overkill_ for the lighting of a cigarette—and it felt like maybe they were getting somewhere interesting, but.  

 

His dress still stunk to high hell of booze, so maybe not. 

 

But again, people were complicated. 

 

His fingers brushed cellophane and he slipped open a baggie in the dark. 

 

Fished out a pressed blue pill from a mix of pink and yellow counterparts and popped it in his mouth, let the bitter taste crack between his teeth. Screwed the cap off of Beau’s metal water bottle and took a swig, washing down the chalky powder. Took a second drink for good measure to make it all go a little faster.

 

Sometimes, his hands got all trigger finger, but this was better. When he got angry, his lavender fingers would curl and flex at his sides the way they would flip and glide open a blade, his butterfly knife, his burial rite. The way he could spin it so easy between his knuckles, inherited muscle memory from another man’s violent circumstance. 

 

But see, he wasn’t an angry person. 

 

He was a good person, a _happy_ person, and in about half an hour, he’d be downright _ecstatic_. A proper fucking _dreamboat_ up in here.

 

⸺

 

After that, the night was beautiful again. 

 

It was liquid velvet, it was magenta warmth and starlight as the room opened up, the noise slipping around him like a second skin, this crystalline thing, raucous and bright. Big smiles all around.

 

He joined his friends, worked the floor. Laughed loudly at small tables. Got pulled into a series of drunken selfies with a still-sober Jester and was nearly blinded by the flash, rattled off some half baked advice to a busted old queen he had apparently done a reading for a month or so ago, their liquor breath slurring something about a neighbor and a dog and such and such relationship drama, so and so’s mother. 

 

He melted into the crowd, into the low red glow of the beautiful strangers haloed in turquoise, as they writhed to the beat, spilled drinks and stray glitter making starlight on the dancefloor.

 

⸺

 

Two hours into his high, Molly had both his hands in a pretty half-elf's hair, his hips pressed against the bathroom sink, the cramped overhead light slick on the black painted walls.

 

Muffled music thudded in his pulse, got tangled up in his wrists as he cupped their jaw, smoothing his thumbs out across the warm, honey colored curve of their cheekbones back out towards softly pointed ears, careful not to get their long black hair caught up in his rings as they kissed, scarred hands settling around his waist— 

 

There was a banging on the door.

 

The both of them ignored it, hands on hips, hands laced around the back of the neck, hands starting to push up the tight edges of the dress around his thighs—

 

“Yo. Hey. Molly.”

 

Beau’s familiar voice, low and insistent beyond the door. 

 

 _Great. Wonderful. The best timing, of course_. “A bit busy right now, come back later!”

 

“I gotta piss, you dick.” 

 

His partner sighed and lifted their voice in turn, a highborn timber discongruent with their circumstance, wrapped in dark clothes and this obscene behavior. “There is another one down by the bar, I am sure that you would be welcome to it.”

 

“It’s out of order.”

 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake…” Molly murmured, an irritated huff cutting out against the half-elf’s ear. “Go out’n use the alley then!” He hollered back through the door, rolling his chin back to recieve a few warm kisses down the side of his throat.

 

There was a sigh, muffled against the rickety door. 

 

“Will you just...hurry up, okay?” Another breath, a sound like her resting her forehead against the wood. A heavy, final thing. “...Something happened. I need to talk to you.” 

 

⸺

 

“This better be fucking important, Beau.” Molly swore as he led her back through the hall towards the darkened dressing rooms behind the stage, locked up and vacant now for the Tuesday night, but private enough, quieter than the rest of the room.  

 

He joined her against the wall and she clicked on her phone, bathing their faces and fingers in a low blue light. 

 

“So Jes posted this earlier, right? Tagged me in the background, it showed up on my page.” She scrolled past a haze of texts and posts down to click the picture Jester had taken of the pair of them earlier, eyeshadow glinting in the flash, her smiling cheerfully and Molly caught with this cocky, half confused grin tugging around his lips, arm slung around her shoulders, one drink in hand.

 

“S’that all?” He pushed some sweat damp bangs back out of his face, getting hot beneath his hair. “I appreciate the tip, but y’know I do have something _much_ more interesting that I could be getting to.” 

 

“No. Just, hold on a minute.” She cut back, clicking over to another app, pulling up her texts. “Here. _Look_.” 

 

At the top of the screen was an unsaved number, and he squinted against the brightness to read their first message, a bubble of grey—

 

`12:44 AM`

`How do you know Lucien?`

 

He blinked at the text, scanned down for Beau’s answer—

 

`1:03 AM`

`the fuck are you talking about`

 

`1:04 AM`

`The tiefling.`

 

`1:04 AM`

`Lavender.`

 

`1:05 AM`

`I saw your picture.`

 

`1:08 AM`

`why are you stalking my page?`

 

`DRAFT - 1:11 AM`

`i think you have the wrong guy`

 

The phone light started to burn against his face. Slick, sunburnt. Too bright, hot against his lids.

 

“You have any idea what this might be about?” Beau asked, leaning back against the wall.  

 

Molly shook his head, trinkets jingling in his horns, a distant clatter.

 

He had an idea. Of course he had an _idea_ , but he really, _really_ did not want to deal with this right now. 

 

Didn’t want to deal with this _at all_.

 

“—Molly?”

 

He wiped a hand back over his face, clammy to the touch. Great. Wonderful. Fucking _fantastic_.

 

Panic fluttered in his chest, clawed up into his throat.

 

A soft heat joined the hall, a brief shadow across Beau’s shoulders. 

 

He didn’t want this. He didn’t _fucking_ want this.

 

“Hey, Molly.”

 

Yasha’s voice pressed softly into the hall, her broad hand coming to rest against the small of his back. 

 

That was better. 

 

Her touch was a grounding, familiar thing. The weight of her hand a reliable anchor which made it a little bit easier to breathe and he pressed his fingers to his temples, massaging slow circles just below his horns. 

 

“Sorry y’all. I didn’t mean to...make a _thing_ of it," Beau started again, her voice going softer, shoulders hunching in the half dark. "I just...thought maybe you should know.”

 

"Yeah, probably. Better to have a heads up than whoever the fuck that is just y'know, _showing up_ here, lookin' around for a dead person. That would be fucking _brilliant_." Stress began to give way to a brand of hazy delirium, unsure whether he wanted to cackle or cry. Maybe both. Definitely both.

 

He was too high for this. 

 

“Who even _is_ that?” He managed, flapping a hand back towards the phone.

 

“Uh, I only met her once, I don't really know. From a work thing.” Beau cleared out her throat, leaning heavily against the wall. “Name's Cree. Friend of a friend kind of thing. Some big tabaxi, dark fur. Good at sniffing people out.” She raised a brow, jabbing her chin back once in Molly's direction. “...That mean anything to you?”

 

“No. Yes. _I don’t know._ ” He snapped back, reeling, white noise pressing tight behind his eyes.

 

He needed a drink. He needed two. 

 

“Maybe, maybe we should...go…” Yasha offered in that quiet way of hers, hand on his shoulder.

 

And do what? Go home and sit in the tub and get stuck stewing on all the horrible possibilities of what this body might have been before he walked off with it? Try and seance up all the shit that he couldn't remember? 

 

Fuck that.

 

It was nothing. It was graverot. It was _someone else's problem_. Someone else's life. 

 

At least here, there was color, there was sound. There were things he could drown himself in. Good things, happy things. 

 

"I'm getting a drink."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this had taken so long, but here we are! i was not initially intending for Molly to have such a shit night, but things'll brighten up for him, i promise.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!
> 
> i know i'm not super integrated in CR fandom spaces yet, but everyone has been so lovely so far. please drop a comment if you enjoyed it, and feel free to let me know of anything you'd be curious to see as we go. i am a lonely shit desperate for asspats, and am looking at having the next chapter up on Friday <3
> 
> title taken from "The Adrenaline Room" by IAMX.
> 
> you can also find me @trans-droid on tumblr


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